


La Vie En Rose

by volti



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, First Dates, New Year's Eve, New Year's Kiss, shrug emoji, this is like a weird mix of canon felix and pv felix i guess????
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:15:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22039915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/volti/pseuds/volti
Summary: “What in the world are you doing?”Her arm was still extended. “Giving you an out. Because it’s New Year’s Eve, and we’re lonely-together people, and you want a party, and I want to change my mind.” She looked at him meaningfully, then nodded toward her hand. “So are you going to take it or not?”Two years pass, and Félix finds himself stuck and bored out of his mind at a New Year's party. Fortunately, he finds someone who can get him out. And give him more than he bargained for.
Relationships: Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Félix
Comments: 24
Kudos: 504





	La Vie En Rose

**Author's Note:**

> give a fic author a week away from work and they'll do... this. listen. they have big darcy/lizzie energy. i couldn't NOT.

Félix wasn’t exactly a man of science beyond school necessities, but he was pretty sure—he could hypothesize, even—that mankind was capable of dying of boredom, and he’d be the first to go.

It wasn’t as though he found it difficult to interact with people at gatherings like these. He’d been to enough of these stuffy parties and black-tie galas that he could at least pretend at being a socialite. He knew how to manipulate words and punch up cheap party tricks enough for that special class of adults who looked down their noses at everyone to laugh behind their hands and call him a master magician. And he knew how to feign laughter at comments like those, because he wasn’t a magician, really. He was an _illusionist_. He just didn’t have the time to play at semantics with these people when the only point was to get on their good sides.

(Even if he wasn’t entirely sure that _any_ of those Rossis had a good side.)

The problem was that events like these were so monotonously _dull_ , whether they were here in France or back in London. He didn’t know how much longer he could deal with the Paris elite telling him how much he’d grown. How talented he was and how excited he must be to inherit his family’s line of work. How he must love the city his aunt once came to call home, and how very tragic it still was to think of her sudden disappearance. Worst of all, how interested he must be in the Agreste’s fashion lines, and—to his chagrin and disdain—how very much he resembled his cousin.

The only relief he got from the last was how, whenever she overheard it, Chloé Bourgeois would fix him with a brief disgusted expression. No matter to him; the feeling was mutual, always had been. And she was the fool besides, for trying so maddeningly hard to possess Adrien in the first place, even after all these years. Even after he tied himself down to that fencing girl. Tsurugi, he thought her name was?

Well. He did it for his mother, after all. She was, and perhaps would always be, the only the reason he managed to endure these things.

But no matter how much he thought of her, no matter how many hugs she gave him, or how much of the car ride back to the hotel she spent thanking him and stroking his hair, he still needed a moment to breathe. That moment found him on one of the balconies of the Grand Paris, the double doors behind him closing off the music and the gossip and leaving him only with the night lights and the strangely temperate winter weather. The city was just as he remembered it, or wanted to: buzzing with life where he couldn’t quite see it, baring its teeth in a smile or bitten-out words. Inviting him to play, or scolding him for all the stiffness in his clothes and his bones and his attitude. But what did Paris know about him? And what did he care to know about it?

And, most baffling of all—why did he want to disappear into it so badly?

Before Félix could humor himself with any more questions or sink his teeth into the night air any further, a figure caught his sight of the corner of his eye. A person, strolling down the street with an irritating bounce in her step. It wasn’t until she came into the streetlight that he recognized her—the dark hair, those curious eyes.

That… that girl from Adrien’s video message. I-Love-You Girl. What was her name again? Marie? Madeleine? How easy it was to forget… He only hoped she’d developed some taste since he’d seen her last.

But what if he…?

Once she was close enough to the balcony, just under the streetlight, he cleared his throat to get her attention. When that didn’t work, he called out, “Hey.” Loud enough that she’d hear him, but not so loud that anyone else would think he was crazy.

I-Love-You Girl stopped, startled, looked around. Was she always so scatterbrained?

“Up here,” he said with an exasperated sigh, leaning over the balcony and digging his chin in his hand so she could get a better look at him. When she had the sense to look, of course.

Finally she did—and as soon as they met eyes, she stared at him sideways. Which… he supposed he deserved, all things considered. At least it was refreshing not to be mistaken for Adrien at first glance. Even though she was, or hopefully _had_ been, so sickeningly invested in him that it was more a dichotomy of _Adrien_ and _Not Adrien._ “Félix,” she said, by way of greeting, colder than the evening. He didn’t even know she was capable of a tone like that. He didn’t even know she remembered his name. “What do you want?”

“Get me out of here,” Félix said with no hesitation and a backwards glimpse at the gala going on behind him. He could make out a muffled piano rendition of _O Holy Night_ or _Auld Lang Syne_ , one of those two—probably Adrien’s doing—and a chorus of voices at various levels of inebriation. So much for distinction. “You’re my out.”

The girl narrowed her eyes, and she jammed her hands in the pockets of her jacket. “Why should I?”

“Because it’s New Year’s Eve,” he pointed out airily, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “And aren’t you supposed to be nice to people on New Year’s Eve? Good will toward men? Any of it ring a bell?”

She was unmoved. “You’re supposed to be nice to people year-round. And _Christmas,_ ” she added pointedly, “was six days ago.”

He sighed again. “Then at least do it for Adrien, would you? Aren’t you friends?”

“Right.” She laughed, but not because she was amused; still, he didn’t miss the split second that her face fell and her body tensed. “Adrien, whose phone you hijacked to try and make me think he hated me. I’m so irrevocably convinced.” She took a step forward, as if to leave. “Besides. You aren’t Adrien.”

Not that that seemed to matter anyway, apparently.

And yet he’d never heard such beautiful words. _You aren’t Adrien._ Damn right he wasn’t. He’d play them over and over if he could.

“Look, I understand,” he blurted out, hoping at least that would stop her. “I shouldn’t have said that. And I hurt your feelings before and never apologized to you for it. I should have. We were just in such a hurry to catch our train back and I never got the chance to meet you in person. Let me… make it up to you now. You know. While fate’s brought us together.” The words tasted tight and bitter in his mouth, like black licorice, but maybe she would believe them. “Tis the season, no?”

She hesitated.

He cocked an eyebrow, inclined his head. He was getting to her. “Besides,” he added. “That Lila girl won’t get off my back about some film deal or other. You must know how _annoyingly_ persistent she can be sometimes. She even puts Bourgeois to shame.”

Félix knew more than his fair share about risk assessment in situations like these, and it seemed as though keeping in touch with Adrien through text, even minimally, paid off. I-Love-You Girl’s expression softened in sympathy—no, _empathy_ —but then she went stiff again, put up the very walls he thought he’d opened up. Oh, he liked this. Finally, someone with a little give.

“Be down in five minutes,” she said, “or you’ll have to find your own way out.”

He grinned, and pushed off the balcony, and slipped back inside.

It wasn’t hard to navigate the hordes of guests, some still singing, some still taking yet another champagne flute from a server with a tray. All he had to do was wait for that Rossi girl to be properly occupied with his mother—which he silently apologized for, and swore to make up to her with a proper Christmas gift—to grab his coat and head downstairs. Even he needed a little air, he said; he wouldn’t be gone long. The only thing that paused him, even briefly, was a conversation he overheard between Adrien and his fencing girl.

“You know, I thought Marinette might show up and help her parents,” he said.

To which the fencing girl replied, “They must have relieved her for the night. Wherever she is, I hope she’s enjoying herself.”

“You mean like we are?” Adrien mumbled, and the two of them laughed, and he took her off to some other corner to chat.

_Perfect._

When Félix made it down to the lobby, I-Love-You Girl was still waiting for him, still with her hands in her pockets. Now that he was closer, he could make out the dark pink of her peacoat, the pattern of her sweater dress that peeked out underneath, the wool tights and lace-up boots. At least she had more fashion sense than anyone upstairs, with their sequined gowns and straitlaced satin lapels.

She looked up, and he took a step forward, smiling cordially. “Marinette. So good to see you.”  
  


* * *

  
For someone as sweet and mild-mannered as Marinette Dupain-Cheng, she certainly knew her way around Paris’s narrow streets and alleys, all the perfect ways of never getting caught. It almost bordered on suspicion, but Félix was already on thin ice as it was. He resigned himself to the universal truth that it was always the quiet ones who got caught up in affairs like these.

“You know,” he said all the same, “it would be nice to know where you’re taking me.”

“Away from that party,” she said, keeping up a pace so oddly brisk that he might have found it hard to keep up if he weren’t so much taller than she was. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

He laughed, a bit in disbelief. He really was going to enjoy this, wasn’t he? “What were you doing out, anyway? Almost everything is closed this time of night.”

Marinette only gave him another sideways glance—more of a glare—and seemed somehow to walk even faster, taking sharp turns every so often. She must have practice with this.

“ _Must_ you move so quickly?” he said. “Any faster and we’ll be running.”

“Do you always talk like this?” she shot back.

“I’d rather it didn’t look like I’m trying to pursue you. Or, you know, like _you’re_ trying to get away from _me._ ” He paused. “ _Are_ you trying to get away from me?”

Marinette stopped just at the end of one of these alleyways, so suddenly that he stumbled and almost bumped into her. She didn’t turn around to face him, but she spoke anyway. “Did you mean what you said up there?” she asked.

Félix paused. “I don’t follow.”

She scoffed through her nose, as if to say, _that’s a first._ “Because if you didn’t mean what you said, and you were just trying to get me to get you out of there, then yes, I _am_ trying to get away from you, and you can handle with getting exactly what you wanted—and finding your way back—all by yourself.” Whatever stiffness still lingered in her body started to fade, just a bit. “But if you meant it… if you really do want to make it up to me, if you really have changed for the better, then…”

Marinette trailed off, and turned her head just so, and the rest of her words hung in the balance. _I’ll stay with you._

He wasn’t used to this. People like this. Girls like this. They either avoided him like the plague under the impression that his money made him consider them beneath him, or they fell all over him because they wanted something out of him. But Marinette wasn’t quite either one. She was hesitant, sure. Resistant, even. But there, in the hairline cracks of her resolve, were the pieces of her personality poking out. The vulnerability. The want, the need to be known, really known. All the little things that Adrien might have loved about her, if he had been smart enough to look.

It _fascinated_ him.

“Do you really think I haven’t changed?” he asked. “It’s been two years. A lot can happen in two years.”

Marinette folded her arms tight. “So can nothing at all.”

Félix sighed. “Fine, I’ll concede it. I made a… less-than-stellar first impression. We were fourteen. And I was foolish.”

“You also _understand_ ,” she quipped, “that being fourteen isn’t an excuse for anything. And that I have this thing called a gut feeling. And that I almost always trust it.”

“And did your gut feeling tell you to leave me on that balcony?” He stepped back. “Did you, perhaps for the first time in your life, decide to go against it?”

Marinette didn’t say anything.

“If you really want me to leave,” he said after a while, once it was clear that she wasn’t _going_ to say anything, “I’ll leave, and you can be on your merry way to celebrate… however it is someone like you celebrates.” His eyes traced the outline of her, head to foot, and he flexed his hands in his pockets, thumb rubbing against the silver band on his finger. “You seem to have been hurt by many people, many times. Let one of them actually do something about it.”

The tension in the moment that followed was near-tangible, and when Marinette stepped onto the street, into the glow of the next streetlight, Félix was half-convinced she really was going to leave. But then she turned on her heel, the slowest she’d been all evening, and looked him up and down, and she was more than that too-soft, simpering I-Love-You Girl he’d first seen. Her cheeks were rosy, likely from the night wind but perhaps from his own words, and she’d pulled her hair back in a ponytail that actually suited her age, and the swimming glint in her eyes and the way she carried herself told him that he was right. That she had been hurt and that, quite frankly, she didn’t need _anyone_ to do _anything_ about it.

And yet she pulled her hand out, extended it to him. “You have tonight,” she finally said. “Let’s hope your second impression is better than your first.”

Félix raised an eyebrow, and took that next step forward. “I think you’ll find,” he said, grasping her hand, “that I’m very good at meeting others’ expectations.”

He bent to kiss the back of it out of polite habit, and it tensed and slipped out of his grip almost instantly. When he looked up, she was staring at him in shock and… shame? Embarrassment? It was hard to read between her lines.

“Sorry,” she stammered, and looked away. “For a moment you reminded me of… someone else.”

“Well, I suppose we can’t have that.” He managed to save himself with a gallant bow—both hands showing, none of his fingers crossed, nothing in his palms. “Miss Dupain-Cheng, I’m in your charge.”  
  


* * *

  
Perhaps he shouldn’t have been so surprised that there was very little still open on New Year’s Eve in Paris. Back home, as he was sure was the case literally everyone where, most festivities and fireworks went on well into the night; in fact, it had sort of been an unofficial family tradition to visit the Natural History Museum, go skating at the ice rink just in front, turn in for some time, return to the streets late at night for some fireworks. He had plenty of pictures from all the years they’d gone before. But that was before his father had passed away, and they hadn’t been back since. Something in his mother’s eyes had changed the first time he asked about the museum, and the sight made his gut twist so unpleasantly that he retracted the question and didn’t dream of ever asking again.

Paris, it seemed, was no different. Sure all the shops and cafés and bakeries were closed for the night and the next day, but there was no shortage of people in the streets and bars and restaurants that were still open. In every building they passed that dared to have its lights on, there were food and drink and excited, almost deafening and certainly drunken chatter.

He swore he’d seen a movie like this, once.

But the whole walk—which was, thank God, actually a _walk_ and no longer practically a run—Marinette was quiet. Occasionally, she checked for phone, sometimes looked it for a couple of minutes at a time. It wasn’t until he pointed out that she _still_ hadn’t told him just where they were going that she shot him a look, phone in hand, and said, “That’s what I’m trying to decide.”

Whatever she could dish out, Félix could give right back. “Have you considered the very novel concept of _asking_ me?”

“Of course. Why hadn’t I thought of that?” Marinette made a show of rolling her eyes as they cut through a nearby park, but at least it seemed playful. “Let me ask the _London native_ what to do on New Year’s Eve in Paris.”

“You know well and good what I meant by that,” he began to say, but stopped short as soon as Marinette did. He squinted at the building in front of him, the dim display cases just inside, the black and gold embellishments, the writing on the windows and front door. _Tom and Sabine’s Boulangerie Patisserie,_ the signs read. _Open every day._

Félix looked at her blankly, putting two and two together. “Is this your house?”

“Very perceptive of you,” Marinette said, taking out her keys and fumbling with the lock. And then, as she opened the door and turned on the lights for both of them, “Wait here. No, not outside, it’s cold.”

“You know,” he tried to joke as he stepped in, “I don’t usually go home with a girl on the first date.”

“Have you even _been_ on a first date?”

Félix paused, and for a brilliant moment Marinette glanced back at him, apologetic, as though afraid that she’d actually hurt his feelings. “That is,” he said as he gathered his words, “ _far_ beyond the point.”

She gave him one of those up-and-down looks again. “Then should I be honored to be the first?” she asked dryly, slipping behind the counters toward a room in the back.

“That depends.” He leaned forward on the counter, took in the brick backsplash and the empty shelves and cases. “Do you consider this one?”

Marinette’s answer was little more than a scoff as she disappeared behind the door, and within a few minutes returned with two small white paper bags and two paper cups in a tray. If he looked close enough, he could see steam rising through the holes in each of the lids.

“Let’s go,” she said, thrusting the bags into his hands before he—or either of them, really—could do or say anything else. And if he looked close enough again, in the time that she allowed him to add a splash of milk, he could have sworn there was a dusting of light pink on the tops of her cheeks.

In spite of that earlier quip, Marinette was probably right about not entrusting an itinerary to him. He barely knew the first thing about these arrondissements, or why anyone would ever refer to them by only their numbers, and he certainly didn’t know what the bus system was like. But then, he barely knew what any bus system was like. He’d even only been on the tube a couple of times, and he’d been so young then, and his father had been the one to take him…

His father…

His expression must have gone sour as they waited at the bus station, because Marinette sighed and sipped her coffee and said, “I get it. It’s not exactly glamorous. But it’s running, so that’s what we’re going to use.”

“I don’t have a problem with it,” he replied simply, and when the bus pulled in she did him the courtesy of giving him a window seat in the back. Sure, the fact that they were seated backwards made him a bit nauseous at first, and sure, the cushion design was absolutely hideous, but seeing the city like this… all this electric contrasted against the dark, the brightly colored signs… well. It did beat staying at that stuffy hotel and that stuffy party. At least, for a blessed half-hour or so, it was quiet here.

“Still haven’t told me where we’re going,” he said out of the corner of his mouth.

“I’m aware.” There was a pause, and under the roar of the bus, Marinette let out a breathless laugh. “You’re just going to have to trust me, huh?”

Félix rested his chin in his hand, smiled grimly into his palm. “How tragic.”  
  


* * *

  
“Well, what do you think?”

“It’s…” Félix began, except the only way he knew how to end his sentence was, “empty.”

Well, it wasn’t _terribly_ empty. There were a few people scattered here and there across what Marinette had called the Trocadéro, but not nearly enough to warrant a celebration. Most of them were talking in small clusters or taking pictures together over some festive music booming in the distance, and still more of them were, more frequently, walking _away_ from the plaza and trying to get somewhere else. At least the place was well-lit for a nighttime spot, and the black-and-white pattern on the ground was pleasantly geometric. But Marinette seemed to be getting comfortable here, on a set of nearby steps, and Félix, having nowhere else to go, could do nothing but follow her.

“You know,” he said, “this wasn’t exactly how I expected my year to end. If you understand what I’m getting at.”

“Do I understand?” she replied. Her words were surprisingly soft, and she hugged her knees to her chest, cradling her cup in both hands and staring out at the park below, and the Eiffel Tower just beyond.

Félix took a seat beside her. In spite of how cold and rigid the steps were, he had to admit, the view from where they were sitting was stunning; it gave them an almost-perfect display of whatever light-show the tower had on, and he was sure that if it were daytime, he might spend more than his fair share walking about the park and the fountains in sight. “When you agreed to get me out of the hotel,” he said, “I assumed you were going to take me to some… some… uncouth party, with flashing lights and earsplitting music.” He set aside his own coffee, thankfully still warm, and the paper bags she’d left in his charge. “Isn’t that how people like you end the year?”

Marinette turned to him; if she was offended, it was difficult to tell. “You don’t know very much about people like me, do you? You don’t know me at all.”

“Then why get me out of there in the first place? Was it really because you hold so much disdain for that Rossi girl? Or because you thought I owed you something?”

“Because you needed kindness,” she said sharply, as if she’d be better off never hearing that name again, and as if that should have been just as obvious. “And because it seemed like you thought I did, too. And, if you weren’t aware, people like me think almost everyone deserves kindness. And everyone deserves to have their mind changed.”

Félix stopped, held his breath, took a moment to realize he was even doing it. _Almost everyone deserved kindness._ Of course he’d heard that before, countless times. From his mother, who took him in her arms and set him on her lap after he’d been teased and rejected one too many times on the playground. From his father, who always made it a point to dig around in his pocket for spare change for any homeless person they might see. Everyone deserved kindness, his father said, because everyone was fighting some kind of battle. Everyone deserved kindness, his mother said, because eventually kindness came around to give you the things you deserve, and—best of all—it came at no cost.

“Well?” Marinette said, resting her chin on her knees. “Was I wrong?”

“No.” He shook his head. It was easier to say when he wasn’t looking at her. When he was looking at the lights instead. “No, you weren’t wrong.”

Out of the corner of his eye, she shrugged, but something in the air about her told him she might be smiling, even if to herself. “I just figured you’d spent so much time around people that you might want to get away from them without getting caught. And I figured you wouldn’t want to do dumb tourist-y stuff like go on the Seine or ride one of those nighttime tour buses.” She nodded toward the tower, then pointed in another direction. “But if a party’s what you want, then there’s one over on the Champ de Mars, and there’s one by the Arc de Triomphe. Just say the word and we’ll get walking.”

Félix chewed his lip, basked in the temperate silence between them, and finally decided to busy himself with poking through the paper bags. Inside were them two croissants—one almond, one chocolate. He looked up from the back, and found Marinette hugging herself even tighter, as though she were trying to make herself even smaller than she already was. “I suppose,” he said, getting comfortable and offering her the bag with the chocolate croissant, “that I could do with knowing you.”

Marinette sighed and scooted a little closer to take it, and Félix counted that as a win. “For what it’s worth,” she added, “You do still owe me, and I wouldn’t wish Lila on anyone. So I guess i’m not totally opposed to you using her as a bargaining chip.”

“She wouldn’t be the first.”

She rolled her eyes. “I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“So.” Delicately, he tore open his own bag at the crease, making a temporary placemat as he unwrapped the almond croissant. “What was a girl like you doing strolling the streets of Paris so late at night?”

“I’m electing not to take _a girl like me_ as an insult.” Marinette was bouncing one knee far too fast for her own good, and only stopped to tear her pastry into smaller pieces, to lick the chocolate from her thumb. “I was with some friends. A couple of them were holding a party on their houseboat.”

“Hm.” Félix paused to sip his coffee. “Now who’s fancy?”

Marinette snorted. “More like chaotic. Their mom partied harder than any of us. Said you have to end the year with a proper bang.” She paused, smiled faintly as if remembering the scene. “She’s fun. They’re fun.”

“Then… why did you leave?”

As soon as he asked, the air around her seemed to depress itself. Her lashes lowered, and she focused entirely too much on eating, and she went pigeon-toed, sitting there. Eventually, she said, “Low social battery, I guess you could say. And…”

Félix tilted his head, and when he spoke, he didn’t think his voice could ever go so… soft. “And?”

Marinette sighed deeply, finally turned to look at him. “I know I’m risking something by asking you about, you know, human emotion,” she said, just barely joking before she sobered up again. “But do you ever feel like… like you’re in a room full of everyone you know, and you’re still lonely? And suffocating? And you need to get out just to be you, for a little bit?”

By now, he’d finished his food, and he gestured for her to give him her empty bag and cup. “And just why do you think I asked you to get me out of that party?”

She looked taken aback for a moment, scanning him up and down with her eyes, and she was staring at him even as he came back to sit with her again. “So I guess we’re just… lonely together. On New Year’s Eve.”

“I suppose we are.” Félix stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I suppose I can’t say I mind.”

Under the light of the Trocadéro plaza, it looked like, perhaps, Marinette didn’t mind, either. And under that same light, if only for a moment or two, Félix suspended his belief in shallow niceties.  
  


* * *

  
“ _This is the way the year ends_ ,” Félix said, more to the gardens and the tower and the festivities than to Marinette. “ _Not with a bang, but a whimper._ ”

“Who said that?” Marinette asked, smiled faintly. “Those words are too pretty to be yours.”

So she could warm up even to someone like him after all. “T.S. Eliot,” he said. “I just changed the words a bit. You should read him sometime.”

He didn’t know how long they’d been sitting out here. Long enough for his hands and the tip of his nose to catch a chill, but not so long that he’d be any kind of missed. Briefly, he wondered how long that would take—if anyone would miss him at all.

He checked his phone. 11:00, and the plaza was entirely empty.

So this really was the way the year ended. Not with choruses and flashing lights and a single glass of champagne form a popped bottle, but with the quiet and the cold and, surprisingly even to himself, a girl to keep him company.

“Can I ask you something strange?” he asked to break the silence.

Marinette looked at him sideways. She was incredibly good at that, it appeared. “You’re on thin ice,” she murmured over the distant music. “But go on.”

He couldn’t believe he was even asking this. “You’re not so—” No, he wouldn’t say it that way. She wasn’t foolish. She’d proved that enough times tonight. Perhaps a bit naïve, and golden-hearted enough to confuse him still, but not foolish. He cleared his throat, tried again. “You don’t still carry those feelings for my cousin, do you? After all this time?”

She raised an eyebrow at him, but not without stiffening just a touch. She was probably hoping it wasn’t noticeable, but she couldn’t have known he had the eyes of an illusionist. The kind that saw everything and unraveled everyone else’s tricks on sight while still hiding his own. “Félix,” she cooed, and this time she really was joking, but the pit of his stomach warmed anyway, and he wished, for just a few seconds, that she might say his name like that again. “I’m flattered, but not interested.”

“Oh, come off it,” he shot back. “That’s hardly why I’m asking.”

“Well,” she said, “To answer your question, that depends. You’re not still a jackass, are you? After all this time?”

He folded his arms. “I’d like to think that sort of characteristic is subjective and employable only when necessary. And I wouldn’t consider this to be one of the times it is.”

Marinette was quiet for a moment, tapping her fingers against her knees in a rhythm he couldn’t quite place. “Not that it’s any of your business,” she said, “but no. Not anymore.”

“I see.” He gave her a faint nod. “Good for you. No point in wasting your time on endeavors bound to go nowhere, is there?”

She didn’t answer, and for a moment he was, to his own surprise, afraid that he’d been the one to hurt her feelings this time. But it seemed that Miss Marinette Dupain-Cheng was nothing if not resilient, and she got to her feet, pacing the plaza just behind him. “Well,” she said, “now it’s my turn to ask you something strange.”

Félix flinched and braced himself, tuned into her every step. “Go on.”

“Why…” Her steps paused, and she brushed back some hair that the wind blew across her face when she turned on her heel. “Why _did_ you do that thing? With Adrien’s phone, I mean. I know it was two years ago, but…”

“That depends.” His legs were starting to get sore, and he stretched them out over the stairs. Had she really been thinking about that all this time? “Which answer would you like to hear?”

Marinette scoffed again, though it was barely audible, and began to pace again. “You got an honest one in there?”

He hummed, the businessman in his blood running warm. “Intending to use it against me somehow?”

“No,” she said simply, another smile lingering somewhere in her voice. “That’s reserved for people like you.”

She wasn’t wrong; in fact, he was sure his mother secretly prided herself on raising him that way. He just had no reason to admit to it. He followed suit, stood and nodded his head, and they began to walk the perimeter of the plaza together. “I suppose you could say I was… jealous. That we had come from such similar circumstances, and yet he was happier for it. That he had friends at all. That in spite of my uncle he opened up and went out into the world, and in spite of my mother I receded and stayed shut in.” Marinette looked at him in a manner he could only describe as incredulous, but he wasn’t fazed. “I didn’t say it was a very _good_ reason. Only that it was one.”

She scuffed her heel against the ground, refused to look at him, and her voice went soft and small. “I didn’t know you lost your mother.”

“My father,” he corrected her. The thought of him ever losing his mother put a twinge in his heart, but he didn’t dare let his expression betray it. “He married into our family, you know. Took my mother’s last name. You could say he was the first to teach me about common folk so I wouldn’t be so out of touch, locked away all the time. Once he passed, I… started failing him.” And then, when Marinette didn’t say anything else, “What? Did you expect something more?”

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, paused at the set of stairs once they reached it. “Did you expect that to excuse you?”

“No,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Forgive me for trying to do that human thing they call _forging a connection._ ”

Whatever festivities going on in the park nearby seemed to double, and some admittedly catchy American jazz song began to play, so loud that he could actually make out some of the lyrics. Marinette seemed to perk up at the sound, and she shot him a glance. “You want to forge a connection?” she asked. “You want your chance to prove you’ve changed?”

“That is why I’m here, isn’t it?”

When he looked to Marinette, she was smiling, walking backward toward the center of the plaza, and she held her hand out to him. “Dance with me.”

His brow furrowed. Had she lost her mind? “I beg your pardon?”

“Dance with me,” she said again, more emphatically this time. She was rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet now. “You wouldn’t leave a lady alone on the floor, would you? You still owe me, don’t you?”

Perhaps they weren’t cut from such distant cloths after all. “I thought you said tactics like these were only reserved for people like me.”

“Well,” she said, “maybe I think something like this is employable only when necessary.”

“I don’t dance, you know.”

“Great.” Her smile shifted into a grin worthy even of the Cheshire Cat himself. “Neither do I.”

“Marinette,” he said, shaking his head. She’d definitely lost her mind. “What in the world are you doing?”

Her arm was still extended. “Giving you an out. Because it’s New Year’s Eve, and we’re lonely-together people, and you want a party, and I want to change my mind.” She looked at him meaningfully, then nodded toward her hand. “So are you going to take it or not?”

Félix didn’t exactly consider himself one to hesitate—it was quite possibly the only other thing he and Adrien’s fencing girl had in common. And he’d never really considered Marinette to be the business type. Tonight, for these few long-lasting seconds, he did. He took her hand before he could double back or regret it, and he tugged her all the way to the center of the Trocadéro. It wasn’t until he had both of her hands in his that he really felt how cold they were, and how soft, and how he wouldn’t be opposed to holding them a while longer. “Seems we both could do with some warming up,” he said.

Marinette’s eyes softened in the light, sparkled bright blue. Strange, how it made his stomach turn so. “Lead the way.”

He’d admit the dancing was clumsy at first; nothing like the ballroom lessons he’d been put up to so many times before. At best, they were two fools doing some simple two-step, back and forth, side to side, and she was leading far more where he should have been. But there were no rules here, no witnesses to look like a fool for, nothing to manipulate and no one to trick. And when he held Marinette at arm’s length and twirled her over and over, she wasn’t just tolerating him. She was enjoying him. She was _smiling, glowing,_ and her cheeks were as pink as her peacoat, and whatever dark cloud had imposed itself on her presence was starting to disappear, little by little. And he was doing this human, infinite thing. And he was human, infinite, too.

He saw her as the music was dying, as she stumbled and he caught her. Not Marinette. I-Love-You Girl. Wherever she had gone before, she was back now, and that breathless smile was his to remember. And he’d never delete it.

“Looks like two years did you some good after all.” she said, letting go of his hands. And then, “What? What are you looking at me like that for?”

Félix shook his head. “Nobody misses me,” he said, entirely unshaken, “and my cousin is a complete idiot, and I couldn’t care less.”  
  


* * *

  
He did her the courtesy of dancing to two more songs after that, until she was flushed in the face and out of breath, and at ten minutes to the New Year, they took the steps down from the plaza and cut through the gardens. They’d probably be stranded here until well after midnight, with every bar and street party starting to clear out. But Marinette had said the buses would be running until 2:00, and from the way she kept bumping into him even with intermittent apologies, he came to mind the prospect of taking one less and less.

“I have one more thing I wanna ask you,” she said. The further they got into the gardens, the louder the music became, and she tugged him away by the sleeve of his coat, where they could walk and talk more quietly. Where he could measure words and ineffable feeling by the slow click of her boots.

He spared her a look, and only that, despite the twitch in his fingers that told him to brush her hair out of her eyes, despite the tension in his arm that told him to pull her out of the way, just in case. He did neither, and said, “I’m listening.”

“Why did you ask me about Adrien?” For some reason, the question rang out louder than anything else he’d heard that night, but Marinette didn’t stop. He had to wonder if she was even capable of it; she only paused when he did, and even then she was a few paces ahead. “I mean, you probably know about Kagami, so. I’m not so sure why whatever I feel—”

“Forgive me,” he said, unmoving, watching her from a distance. “I merely thought that someone who thinks everyone deserves kindness should deserve some of it returned.”

Marinette opened her mouth. Closed it. Open and closed, again. She tucked back those flyaway hairs he’d been tempted to touch. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Only…” She looked softer in the streetlight, more than she had in the alleyway, more than she had on the bus, even more than she had under the light of the Trocadéro plaza. A part of him wanted to savor it, carry it into the new year; another part of him was mortified to have felt so, and determined to cover it up. He found the middle ground and steeled himself, his hands in his pockets, clenching out the softness of her fingers that still lingered there. “Only that it would be foolish to let that kindness go to waste. Those feelings.” He pressed his lips together, caution bleeding into his stare. “You’ve proven that you’re far too smart for that.”

Perhaps this was, aside from the dancing, aside from that video, the most vulnerable he had ever seen her: standing on the sides of her feet, looking away with a blush that was as demure as it was flattered. Something about her, so still and listening for the countdown, told him that she must have been telling herself this for ages. “That’s how I know you never really knew me,” she joked hollowly. “Just saying things to butter people up, huh.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Félix took one step forward, and then another. “Well,” he said, “if that’s really how you feel, then… I did say I could do with knowing you. I don’t intend to take that back now.” He flicked his gaze up toward her as they stood toe-to-toe, close enough for them to hold each other’s breaths, far enough for him to back off. “What do you say?”

Marinette looked at him like she was expecting him to hold out his hand again. Skeptical. She folded her arms. “Is this some kind of deal?”

“I’d like to think,” he said, “that by now we’ve moved past transactions.”

Before she could respond, a resounding cheer from down the way caught their attention, a chorus of people beginning to count down from sixty. Félix wondered if it must have sounded the same back at the Grand Paris, or if they were simply waiting for the clock to turn over, waiting to applaud the new year by way of greeting.

She turned back to him. “One minute left,” she said, and if he strained his ear it might sound like she was… regretting it. “Well? Did I waste my kindness on you, too?”

“You’re the one with the ‘gut feeling,’” he replied with a shrug and a set of air quotes. “Did you waste the honor of a first date on me, too?”

“This wasn’t a _date_.” Thirty seconds. She rolled her eyes. “This was a second impression.”

“Not a bad second impression.”

“How would you know?”

“You’re smiling,” he said. “Your eyes are smiling.”

Marinette held her breath, watched him cautiously. She wasn’t quite the girl from the alleyway, wasn’t quite I-Love-You Girl. She hung somewhere in the balance, eyes soft, stance open, even as the hint of an actual smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

He took his hand out of his pocket, let it hover at the small of her back without actually touching her. “Would it be a date if I kissed you?” he asked. He didn’t know why he was breathing the words. He only knew why he was asking. “Or would it just be tradition?”

She snorted. “And waste a New Year’s kiss on you?”

He raised an eyebrow and both hands, took a couple of steps back. “You thought you wasted a lot of things on me. Why would I stop you now?”

Marinette moved forward, reached for him by the front of his coat and tugged him in with a force that made him stumble. “Oh, get over here,” she murmured over the roar of the street party, standing up on her toes and pressing her mouth to his just as the countdown hit one.

Sure, Félix had admitted to never having been on a first date, but he’d never admit that he hadn’t ever been kissed either. He stumbled again, his hand finding purchase at her back—for real this time—and in the sudden deafening quiet of the park his body went stiff and his stomach began to turn. He felt every sharp thing he’d ever seen in her, warm and searing—the biting comments, the limits, every little thing that put him in his place—and he fully expected her to rip herself away from him and ask if he was happy now. Instead, all that edge began to fade, and gradually she went lax under his touch. She stood back on her feet, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him with her, let him find and follow the rhythm of her lips. Let him feel the dancing again. And when she finally moved back, she didn’t stray too far. In fact, she was still holding onto him. Like she was considering giving him another.

“Oh,” she rasped. He couldn’t even tell if her eyes were open or closed. If they were still smiling. If I-Love-You Girl was standing in front of him instead.

He didn’t dare move. “What?”

“You have changed. You’re real.”

He wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean. But before he could say anything, she gingerly tapped his chest, stepped out of his grasp, brushed her fingers against her lips before jamming her hands in her pockets.

“How long before you go back to London?” she asked.

“That depends,” he said, all breathy words again. He could still feel the kiss on him. Kicked himself for wanting to feel it again. “If you wanted to see me again, would it a first date, or a second?”

“Let’s go,” Marinette said with a joking shove and a tug toward the bus station. And as they pushed through the crowds she grabbed his hand, and as they rode the bus back she leaned on his shoulder and watched the city die down with him, and before he made it to the lobby of the Grand Paris she pulled him into the dark for one more kiss goodnight. It was well past midnight, and the kiss was quicker than the last, but he returned it anyway, lonely-together with her for those last few seconds.

“If they don’t chew you out in there,” she said, “meet me at the Trocadéro tomorrow at 11.”

Félix raised a brow. “For what? Another second impression?”

Marinette smiled. There wasn't very much I-Love-You Girl lingering there, but he supposed he liked her better that way. “For a second date.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have a [Twitter](www.twitter.com/omnistruck) and a [Tumblr](http://voltisubito.tumblr.com); follow me there for more shenanigans! Feel free to leave comments and questions and stuff in my [Curious Cat](https://curiouscat.me/omnistruck) as well c: and kudos here, too!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!!! I hope you're having a lovely day <3


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